University of Arkansas Teams Take Top Prizes at Rice University Business Plan Competition

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Grand prize winners in the 2010 Rice University Business Plan Competition are Biologics team members, l. to r., Robyn Goforth, Paul Mlakar, Misty Stevens and Michael Thomas.

HOUSTON, Texas. – A student business plan for a patent-pending, pre-clinical, osteoporosis medication called OsteoFlor has won more than $410,000 in awards in the 2010 Rice University Business Plan Competition, Houston, Texas, held on April 15-17.

The University of Arkansas team, BiologicsMD, received the competition’s grand prize, which was valued at more than $385,000, including a $285,000 equity investment, $20,000 in cash and over $80,000 in business services such as office space, marketing support and business mentoring.

Carol Reeves, associate professor of management, was the faculty advisor for the team, which includes Paul Mlakar, Michael Thomas and Misty Stevens, Sam M. Walton College of Business managerial MBA students; and Robyn Goforth, Certificate in Entrepreneurship program.

The Rice University competition, the world’s richest and largest business plan competition, awarded more than $1million in cash and prizes on April 17. The competition was hosted by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business and co-sponsored by Fortune magazine. The 42 teams, picked from 420 submissions from around the world, received cash prizes and competed in six categories: social ventures and other technologies, life sciences, information technology, energy, and green tech. The 200 judges were venture capital investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders.

A second University of Arkansas team, InnerVision, also mentored by Reeves, won the NASA Earth/Science Engineering Innovation Prize of $20,000, along with $1,500 for advancing to the semi-finals where they come in fourth. Team members include Elizabeth Slape, Jeff Veltkamp, Annelie Recking and Anoop Prasanna, all Master of Business Administration students in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, and Bryon Western, a master’s student in the College of Engineering microelectronics-photonics program. InnerVision’s patent-pending technology enables power-generation facilities to radically change their maintenance programs and save billions of dollars each year on interval-based maintenance.

The Biologics team also won the Best Life Science Award and $2,500 sponsored by Essex Woodland Health Ventures; the $15,000 Heinlein Prize Trust for Space Commercialization; the $10,000 Courageous Women Entrepreneur Awards by provided by nCourage Entrepreneurs Investment Group; Best Elevator Pitch Life Sciences sponsored by Sante Ventures; and second place in the overall elevator pitch. Altogether, the team won almost $420,000 in cash, investments, and prizes.

Mlakar said, “When we started our project, we had no idea that osteoporosis was such a serious issue and affects such a large segment of the older population. We are very excited to get this great investment so we can take a product like this to market.” OsteoFlor binds directly to the bone and almost triples new growth in bone. It can be taken in fewer doses than other products available today and has fewer side effects.

Reeves said, “It was a great honor for both of these teams to be picked to compete in the Rice Competition and we are thrilled that each did so well. BiologicsMD will be featured in a Fortune Magazine article in late May. In June, they will go to New York for three days and ring the bell at NASDAQ.

She continued, “This week, at the Arkansas Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup graduate division competition, InnerVision came in first place and won $20,000 plus the $5,000 AT&T Innovation Award. BiologicsMD won the $10,000 second place prize and $2,000 for the best elevator pitch. A third UA team, GreenValley Solar, won the third place prize of $5,000.

University of Arkansas teams have arguably had the best results in the country this year, with the three teams winning six national competitions and reaching the finals in five others. No other university has won more than two competitions and no other university has had more than one team win at a national competition. It is hard to think of adjectives that properly describe these teams’ accomplishments.”

In February, BiologicsMD won first place and $15,000 as well as the $500 Spirit Award in the Cardinal Challenge at the University of Louisville and first place and $10,000, as well as $250 in the trade show booth competition, at the Spirit of Enterprise MBA Business Plan Competition, University of Cincinnati.

In March, InnerVision won a $20,000 investment and $20,000 in legal fees and first place in the Technology Division of the McGinnis Venture Competition, hosted at Carnegie Mellon University. The team also won third place and $1,000 and $2,000 in the elevator pitch competition at the University of San Francisco International Business Plan Competition.

GreenValley Solar won competitions at Oakridge National Labs ($27,000) and the University of Manitoba ($15,000) and finished third in a very competitive competition at the University of Oregon.

Biologics team member Stevens said, “One of the judges at Rice came up as asked us, ‘What’s going on in Arkansas?’ I guess he was very surprised that Arkansas could produce such great business ideas, but we changed his mind.”

After InnerVision’s win at Carnegie Mellon, Slape said, “Words cannot describe the pride we feel in representing the University (of Arkansas). We are filled with joy that we were able to enhance the reputation Arkansas is getting from winning at these business plan competitions.”